Glass articles are used in a variety of industries including the electronics industry where glass is used to cover displays. Examples of such applications include Liquid Crystal Displays and Light Emitting Diode displays, for example, computer monitors, televisions, and handheld devices. Conventionally, glass has been produced in large sheets and is scored using a mechanical scoring wheel or a laser. After being scored, an external force is applied to the glass sheet to break the glass along the score line. With the glass portioned into smaller sizes, the glass partitions undergo further processing including, for example, edge polishing and/or a chemical strengthening process.
Processing glass according to the conventional method has proven burdensome. First, when glass is broken along the score line by an application of force, the application of force tends to damage the glass portions, which may increase the scrap rate. Further, for chemically strengthened glass, introducing the smaller, separated glass articles to a chemical strengthening process after the cutting process decreases throughput, as the smaller glass articles require increased operator intervention as compared to processing a larger mother glass sheet. Therefore, conventional methods do not allow scoring and separating glass sheets after chemical strengthening, particularly at high levels of central tension inside the glass sheets because of spontaneous breakage of the glass or premature separation before scoring is completed.
Accordingly, methods of cutting glass using a laser are needed.